We live in a world of fast fashion, where glossies hail 'this week's must-haves!' and warn 'get it now before it's gone!' - and where a passable imitation of something a celebrity wears in Heat magazine is often in the shops three weeks later for under £20.

What's so wrong with this, you might ask? Nothing, if you don't care if that garment happened to be made in a sweatshop. Nothing, if you think that like cheap food, cheap fashion is some kind of inalienable human right. Absolutely no problem, if you think it's perfectly normal to buy a garment, wear it once, then chuck it away.

Most people, of course, aren't so callous. They know that a £3 T-shirt has human costs and consequences. But they are yet to make the next step - to investigate the ethically produced alternatives. This where this new column will hopefully help.

First things first, what exactly is ethical fashion? Well, there are any number of different ways in which a garment can be produced ethically (or at least more ethically) - from paying fair wages, using sustainable fabrics and cutting down the distance they must travel, to donating a portion of proceeds to charity or simply making sure the business carefully monitors and limits its environmental impact.

Over the last few years, high street companies have slowly begun to hop on this bandwagon. Most now produce a Fairtrade pair of socks or an organic T-shirt here or there - a process that is certainly to be welcomed.

That said, you do have to be careful. At the moment, many of the big retailers are selling 'Fairtrade cotton T-shirts' - Sainsbury's had a big ad campaign for theirs a few weeks ago, for instance. But note the small print: it's the cotton that's Fairtrade, not the T-shirt. Sorry if this is hammering home the point, but: although the cotton pickers got paid a Fairtrade wage, the T-shirt makers did not.

Another misconception is that the more you pay, the better the conditions in which the garment was produced were likely to be. It simply doesn't work that way. It's not rocket science to figure out that a T-shirt can't be produced in a fair way for £3, but that doesn't mean a £100 dress will be any better. Some high street retailers are better than others at paying decent wages and checking the environmental impact of their products - to see how well they rate check out New Consumer magazine and the Good Shopping Guide - but the record across the board isn't great. For example, despite considerable pressure, a few high street companies - named and shamed here - still refuse to disclose whether they source from Burma, one of the world's most oppressive military regimes.

For all these reasons I believe it's better to buy from small retailers who have ethical and environmental principles at the core of their business. They sure don't make much money - this is not an area to go into if you want to make a quick buck - but they do continually check that ethical standards are being upheld. If you want to investigate further, you can browse our comprehensive guide to ethical fashion producers in the UK, with over 200 retailers listed.

Ten years ago organic food was something of a fad, confined mainly to healthfood shops and the odd tiny grocer. Now it's a multi-billion pound business, with all the flaws that come with that. Ethical fashion will soon head the same way and will no doubt face similar problems - or a whole set of new ones. But if even a small proportion of the mammoth fashion industry were to fully embrace ethical principles, the difference it would make to the environment and those in developing nations would be extraordinary. I'm not saying chuck out your wardrobe and start again (that wouldn't be very ethical … just think of the landfill) but slowly change your shopping habits over a period of time.

· Over the next columns I'll be addressing a series of ethical fashion issues from cotton growing to how Fairtrade can become unfair. I'd also like to hear from you - are you searching for an ethical wedding dress? Want to find a great-fitting pair of organic jeans? Please email me your questions and each week I'll try my best to tackle them.